Civ4 Expac Questions

[Fluffball]

I tried a search with no good results, although I'm sure these have been answered before. Ban me if you want. Ok please don't.

I never bought the expacs because I thought the features looked not thought out at all and/or wildly unbalanced. However after reading some multiplayer reports here my curiosity has been re-peaked. With that in mind:

1) Would you recommend I buy them at all?

2) Is there a way to easily play vanilla if I hate them?

3) Should I buy one or the other or both?

[Bobchillingworth]

You mean Warlords and Beyond the Sword? Assuming you're purchasing them for Steam:


1. Yes

2. Yes, you just pick which of the three you want to play and launch it from your Steam library

3. Both. I got the most enjoyment out of Warlord's SP experience, but you need BTS to play most of the excellent mods available, such as Fall From Heaven, and participating in pretty much any Civ IV game here requires it.

[Fluffball]

Thanks! Assuming I don't MP which I think is out of the question at this point since I'm like 27 years behind you guys in expac experience, and I'm not going to mod for SP, does that change your recommendations? Or you just like both of them and their features as is?

Also if you respond do you have anything to say on the balance or OPness of anything, or is it basically fine for SP and just go with it?

[picklepikkl]

re: MP being out of the question, I picked up Civ4 about six months ago and I'm doing reasonably OK in multiplayer here thus far. It's not that bad, people self-select for enjoyable games.

[Bobchillingworth]

BTS adds a number of new leaders and civs, which is to the game's benefit, and some cool mapscripts. I never got into it the same way I did vanilla or Warlords in part because the AI didn't seem to perform as well and I didn't enjoy the new espionage system (which was probably crippling said AI), but I would recommend trying it out anyway, since a lot of people do enjoy it and it's certainly not bad by any means.


If you'd prefer to only purchase one however I'd recommend Warlords, and then pick up BTS on a Steam sale when it's like a buck.

[SevenSpirits]

I just want to clarify: Warlords is ONLY worth getting for some specialized single player stuff. BTS is all that you need to play what 99% of Civ IV players play.

[Fluffball]

I just want to clarify: Warlords is ONLY worth getting for some specialized single player stuff. BTS is all that you need to play what 99% of Civ IV players play.

Do you mean I should get Warlords if I want to do SP stuff, and BTS for MP?

Edit: Just for clarity what I want is like 99.5% SP, and maybe I'll join a MP game.

[Bobchillingworth]

To clarify Seven's clarification:


* Warlords adds a lot of useful content to the vanilla game. Several new civs and leaders, two new traits, Great Generals, a bunch of scenarios that nobody plays.

* BTS includes all of Warlord's content (well, minus the scenarios), plus several additional civs, leaders, and mapscripts, as well as a lot of other content which you may or may not enjoy, such as a much more complex espionage system and poorly-balanced (but often fun) corporations.

* I personally preferred my time playing Warlords SP to BTS SP because I felt the former had a stronger AI, and a lot of the new systems BTS introduced seemed like clutter. But that's just my impression, many people enjoy BTS and the vast majority of current Civ IV players use it.

* If you have any interest in playing in a Civ IV MP event here or playing in a Civ IV SP Adventure, you should purchase BTS.

[SevenSpirits]

Yeah, what Bob said.

[ipecac]

re: MP being out of the question

As picklepikkl said, it's fine to jump into MP with basically zero BtS experience; that's what I did.

I'm doing reasonably OK in multiplayer here thus far. It's not that bad, people self-select for enjoyable games.

Ditto (for certain values of 'reasonably OK' and 'enjoyable'.